La piel como frontera y escenario

Abstract

The skin, the largest and most exposed organ, acts as a dual entity: a protective biological boundary and a stage for psychic manifestations. In psoriasis, this flexible boundary becomes a rigid barrier; the lesion is seen both as organic damage and, simultaneously, as the visible manifestation of a conflict, isolating the subject and centering their identity on the wound. The skin is foundational to the psyche, and in this sense, psoriasis represents a paradoxical somatic defense. Drawing on the articulation of Freudian concepts, Didier Anzieu’s Skin-ego, Esther Bick’s notion of the second skin, and the contributions of Joyce McDougall, this paper proposes that psoriasis is an extreme attempt by the organism to establish a boundary and protection against the perception of a deficiency in the psychic envelope, which affects the libidinal economy and the bond with the Other. Since identity is forged in primary contact and sensory experience, the psoriatic plaque must be analyzed as a disturbance in the very constitution of the Ego. In this way, the analysis invites us to see it as a theater in which an internal struggle is represented that compromises the psychic integrity of the individual.